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T H E P R A I R I E C A P
I T A L
The State House
BEFORE
Nebraska became a state its territorial capitol was at Omaha.
There had been two Capitols there. The first was at 10th and
Farnum, the second on what is still known as Capitol Hill, then
far on the western outskirts of the metropolis. Both these earlier
buildings were such as the rigorous conditions of the frontier
community required. They were small, of flimsy construction and
wholly lacking in architectural appeal.
The first of the State Capitols stood where the
last is now rising to completion. It was built of native stone
brought by slow teams from Plattsmouth or Nebraska City. The
railroad had not yet reached Lincoln. Old photographs show the
State House to have made some pretension to formal elegance. It
had a dome.
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The grounds were unfenced and innocent of
trees, though the latter were soon planted and began to make an
appearance of green. The original prairie sod was undisturbed and
the neighborhood cows sometimes found pasturage in the unfenced
park. Travel to and through the Capitol took the direct diagonal
path. There was a shed or two where one official or another
sheltered his horse during office hours.
The legislative chambers in the State House were
the largest rooms in town and were used for other purposes than
the enactment of laws. Conventions were held there. Balls
sometimes were given there and visiting theatrical companies
played "East Lynne" in chambers dedicated to legislative oratory.
The building was heated by stoves and lighted at first by oil
lamps. When Walsh and Putnam began to make gas in Lincoln the
State House used it. A true frontier informality ruled the daily
routine of the occupants of the State House. Tne first velocipede
ever seen in Lincoln was ridden noisily up and down the main
corridor by the small son of the clerk of the Supreme Court. No
Governor or Secretary of State ever protested at the clatter or
the undignified use of public property. In the buildings one
custodian dwelt somewhere hidden in the lower fastnesses. When his
services were needed he was summond by a shout into the corridor.
Chief justice or Governor would step into the hall. A cry for
"Sol" would reverberate through all the chambers. Sol (short
for
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Solomon) would appear. In all the years of his faithful service
no one ever called on Sol in vain. Which is more than can he said
for some of his official superiors.
But whatever were its defects, whatever its
shortcomings, in structure or in official formality it was
emphatically the State House, paradoxically both head and seat of
the state government. To its House and its Senate came men as able
and patriotic as any state has ever had. Upon its Supreme Bench
sat justices as learned in the law, and before them pleaded
lawyers as eloquent and able as any bar has known.
Fifty years age this first State House was
pssing from the picture. Around it was building the newer and much
greater Capitol. As the massive foundations were laid and the
walls erected it seemed to he building for all time. Half a
century later its successor is rising on the same site. It, too,
seems to be built for all time. Perhaps it, too, may be found
inadequate to the needs of a growing state.
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The Railroad
THE Great Plains of which Nebraska is a part offered an ideal field for the railroad builder. Between the Missouri river and the Rockies no important topographical obstacles exist. After the river was crossed no important streams bar progress westward. In fact, the Platte instead of barring progress aids it. The Oregan Trail and the Overland Trail to the mines of California had found the valley of the Platte an easy way of access to the promised land. The first railroad, the Union Pacific, inevitably followed the same path. Until the rails reached the fork of the stream at North Platte they did not cross it. From Julesburg it followed the Lodgepole up to the plateau of eastern Wyoming and found it a ready path to the great mountains west of Cheyenne. The Burlington in the South Platte portion of the state has a route almost as easy and direct to the west. It
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was inevitably a part of the westward movement following the
Civil War that this region should become the scene of great
railway building.
But few of the pioneers who came before the
railroads came, could see it. They thought of wood burning
locomotives--where on these treeless prairies was the fuel to be
found. Where the timber for ties and bridges? Even if the road
could be built, how could it be supported? What would it haul?
They could not see that the grass that supported millions of
buffalos would equally support herds of domestic cattle. They
could not see that the soil and climate that produced the grass
would also produce corn and wheat. A railroad to the west coast
was all right as a military link, to be operated as such and
supported by government subsidies, but aside from that few could
see any possibility of further development. So when Nebraska
became a state and the Prairie Capital was located at Lincoln,
then far beyond any railhead of any road, it was opposed because
it must forever be an inland town. And for a while it was just
that. Its first building, were made of stone and lumber hauled by
oxen and horses from Plattsmouth or Nebraska City. Its first
Capitol wan built in this way. Its first citizens all came in
either on their own feet or drawn by the feet of horses.
But the opponents of the new site were soon
proved wrong. The town grew rapidly. The B. and M. pushed its slow
way up Salt Creek and the Prairie Capital had its first railroad.
That made the town
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grow still more rapidly. The country began to settle. The
railway had business hauling supplies in, and it was evident that
it would soon have business hauling grain out. Branches were
built. The Midland Pacific, and the A. and N. reached out to the
south and east. The process did not stop until Lincoln hecame the
railroad center of the state.
The first railroad of the 70's was not much like
the railroads of 1930. It landed its passengers and freight at
about Seventh and M streets. When it rained the station was in a
lake. The engines were small as they needed to be to stay on the
light rails. The cars were wooden--hot in summer and freezing in
winter. They were controlled by hand brakes applied on signal from
the engine whistle. A summer journey, say to Nebraska City, was an
event. The train rambled leisurely across the pleasant country.
The summer breeze came in the windows with the smoke and cinders.
The linen duster was the accepted traveling coat. Station stops
were frequent and long. The engineer seemed to have a lot of
visiting to do at every town. Tommy Ryan, the conductor, was the
guide and friend of every adventurous passenger.
In 1930 the B. A. T. plane will take you to
Chicago in five hours. The Ak-Sar-Ben will do it in thirteen. In
those early days of the first railroad the advertised time was
thirty-four hours. If they had luck they made it in thirty-four
hours.
T H E P R A I R I E C A P
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Sports
THE
chapter on sports in the ancient village that was the Prairie
Capital should be as short as the story of the snakes in Ireland.
There were none. At least there were none in the modern sense.
Like art, sport requires a certain leisure for its development. In
the old Lincoln there were no idlers. Everybody worked, especially
father. There were no tired business men whose arteries needed
softening. They had their games but they were unorganized, and
even in the case of baseball uncommercialized. Horse racing was
the amusement of a few who fancied and could afford fast
stock.
Shotgun fans were numerous. Game birds were
thick in season on the thinly settled prairies. In spring and fall
the creeks and ponds swarmed with ducks and geese. Bird dogs were
the canine elite.
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A. J. Sawyer's "Jeff" and Col. Buford's "Duke" were famous.
Everybody at times hunted, but the headliners in the sport were F.
Hallett, J. H. Harley and J. E. Houtz. They were all crack shots
and keen sportsmen. They knew how, when and where to get game.
They were the admiration of the town kids growing up to shotgun
age. Mr. Hallett still in 1930 looks back to the days of real
sport.
Salt Creek and its confluent streams were then
unpolluted by sewage. They were deeper and swifter. The prairies
were in large part unbroken by the plow. Summer rains ran quickly
from the tight sod with a minimum of erosion. As settlement
increased the creeks gradually became filled with silt. What was
then a famous deep swimming hole with its steep "slippryjinny" is
now a shallow puddle. Fishing was good, and everybody fished. One
squatter with a shack near the Shepard tower on North
Twenty-seventh even made a living from his trot lines. Sometimes
in spring high water, fish ran up the Antelope and Deadman's Run
and were captured with pitchfork and garden rake. Col. L. C. Pace
long held the record with a twelve pound buffalo.
Even the University was without sports which
seems now like a contradiction in terms. There was a lot of back
lot baseball and one old cat. Prof. W. W. W. Jones used to bat
flies for the boys at recess. And that was about all. Once in the
80's an athletic rector of the Episcopal church introduced
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the game of lacrosse, and for a time among his choir boys the game promised to become popular. But it ended in promise. As for golf, nobody even knew the word. It was to be many years later that Bob Joyce would import some crazy looking shinny clubs that he called golf sticks. He learned to play by demonstrating them in his store. The first indoor golf in town. His foursome partners say his game has gone off since then.
